Basil minced pork with clear tom yam soup ($6.90)!
Singapore Thai stall — basil minced pork with clear tom yam soup at $6.90. Bangkok-style krapow moo with the clear tom yam variant.
Back in Singapore — Monday lunch with BB at a Thai stall for the basil minced pork with clear tom yam soup at $6.90. The Bangkok-street-style pad krapow moo paired with the clear tom yam variant.
We ordered:
- Basil minced pork with clear tom yam soup — $6.90
Pad krapow moo (basil minced pork over rice) is the most-eaten lunch dish in Thailand by a wide margin and one of the staples in our Singapore Thai food rotation. Minced pork stir-fried at high heat with garlic, bird’s-eye chillies, sweet basil, fish sauce and a splash of dark soy. The basil leaves get crispy on the edges from the wok, the chilli heat builds slow, and the whole thing gets piled on top of jasmine rice with a runny-yolk fried egg on top.
This stall’s version had the proper format. The minced pork was wok-fried at proper heat, with the slight char on the edges that says the wok was hot enough. Generous chilli heat that we asked them not to dial down — the proper Thai pad krapow has bird’s-eye chilli kick that builds across the first few bites and lingers in the back of the throat.
Sweet basil (proper Thai sweet basil / horapha, not the regular Italian variety) was scattered through the pork and crisped at the edges from the wok heat. The basil-and-chilli combination is the entire flavour profile of the dish.
A runny-yolk fried egg on top — break it, mix into the rice, the golden yolk threads through the meat and rice.
The clear tom yam soup was the side. Different from the typical creamy tom yam (which uses coconut milk or evaporated milk for the creamy white version), the clear version (tom yam nam sai) keeps the broth transparent, with the sour-spicy flavour from lime juice, chilli, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal coming through clean against the clear broth.
Both dishes combine into a complete Thai lunch — substantial protein-rice main, hot sour-spicy soup side, fresh-spicy seasoning across both.
At $6.90 for the combo, this is honest Singapore Thai hawker pricing.
Overall: 4.4 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Solid Thai pad krapow + tom yam combo — would re-order.
